Month: April 2020

  • Call for extension to European payment security standard deadline

    Payments processors across Europe have called on the continent’s banking regulator to extend the deadline for meeting the Secure Customer Authentication (SCA) security standard as the Covid-19 crisis strains resources.

    Businesses are directing all resources possible to surviving the current global crisis, with limited resources left for projects such as SCA compliance. This is being made worse by lockdowns and staff cuts.

    On behalf of non-bank payment processors, which it represents, the European Payment Institutions Federation (EPIF) – made up of the likes of Visa and Mastercard – has written to the European Banking Authority (EBA) asking for more support,

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  • GCHQ gets access to NHS data to beef up security

    Health secretary Matt Hancock has used emergency powers under the NHS Act of 2006 to give GCHQ special dispensation to access data on the NHS’s cyber security and other IT systems in order to better protect the health service from cyber attack during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

    Documents released by the government, which can be viewed online, were signed off by Karen Dooley, a senior civil service member at the Department for Health and Social Care, on 3 April 2020.

    “During the emergency, the network and information systems held by or on behalf of the NHS in England

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  • Privacy International puts Palantir in the dock for NHS data analysis work

    Civil liberties campaigning group Privacy International is questioning the role of Silicon Valley data mining company Palantir in the NHS’s data analysis programme.

    NHSX and NHS England Improvement reported at the end of March that they had engaged Palantir alongside Microsoft, Google and London-based artificial intelligence (AI) firm Faculty to build a “data platform” to make the anti-Covid-19 response as efficient and effective as possible.

    Data will be gathered from sources including 111 calls and Covid-19 test results, according to a BBC report by Leo Kelion, technology desk editor.

    Privacy International, Big Brother Watch, medConfidential, Foxglove and Open Rights Group 

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  • Ericsson scores further 5G RAN win with True Corporation Thailand

    Building on what has been a solid start to 2020 for the Swedish comms tech giant with its 5G technology, Ericsson has been selected by Thai communications service provider True Corporation as a 5G radio access network (RAN) supplier for part of its national 5G network.

    Starting as a fixed-line communications company in 1990, True Corporation claims to have revolutionised total communications in its local market, being first to offer ADSL and cable internet in 2001. The following year, it officially offered a mobile service for wireless communications, and in 2006, it introduced a pay-TV service.

    The company said it

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  • Snapshots 101: Array vs backup software

    Nearly all enterprise and mid-range storage arrays come with snapshots. But that’s not the only place you can manage them from.

    Backup software also comes with snapshot functionality, and in fact some of the more recent entrants to the market have built their approach to backup around snapshots.

    Snapshots capability in backup products starts with the ability to manage and copy storage hardware makers’ snapshots. This is the case with Veritas, IBM’s Spectrum Protect and EMC’s Networker. Things get more sophisticated with, for example, Commvault, which can manage a range of array makers’ snapshots from a single console.… Read More

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  • NHSX on track for May launch of Covid-19 contact-tracing app but challenges remain

    The UK government’s Covid-19 contact-tracing app remains on schedule for launch in May despite ongoing privacy concerns and only recently passing through alpha testing, leading UK scientists told MPs.

    Giving evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, as part of an inquiry into UK science, research and technology capability during the coronavirus outbreak, experts also admitted that it would be difficult to achieve the volume of users necessary to make the app’s use worthwhile. In addition, privacy and functional elements of the app were challenged by MPs.

    The NHS digital innovation unit, NHSX, last week

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